Just in case you missed part 1, it’s right here, so check it out before returning here ready to finish this tutorial.
Mixing your subject with objects in the scene will help sell the illusion better, so I have placed the subject over the barrel and will now make it look like she is standing next to it. The shadow is causing a problem, but nothing a mask cannot fix.
Welcome to Part 2 of Cut Outs: Background Eraser Tool. In this tutorial we will be cleaning up the rough cutout we made with the background eraser tool. Missed it? Don’t worry, the post is right here.
If you remember, the cutout we made was decent enough; especially for the time we put into it. But for a professional, this is just not up to scratch yet. Now I will take you through some advanced techniques to cleanup the image before we drop it into a background. The image below shows you where we got to – some rough/furry edges, green lines remaining and green hints in the legs and arms.
In the previous masking tutorial (found here) we looked at how to use some of Photoshops masking tools. But now we will look at a new kind of mask, the Clipping Mask.
So let’s start playing with this tool. Here I have a background and a line of text. What I would love is for the background texture to fill only the text area. This can be done with standard masks in just a few clicks, but with two clicks it can be one with clipping masks.
(1st click) Move text under the texture.
Using the masking tools in Photoshop is more about showing things off than hiding them. They can be a tricky thing to master, but I will use this tutorial to show you how to use effective masking techniques in your work.
To demonstrate the tools, let’s create a space themed application icon. These complex pieces of artwork often incorporate many existing images or textures to represent the software in one single and complete icon.